A survey conducted by our colleagues from The Markup site proves that Amazon tampers with its search results to highlight products from its brands, to the detriment of competing products that are nevertheless better rated.
After the shocking article around Amazon delivery people who are losing money because of the American giant’s surveillance cameras or even this controversy after the promotion of anti-vaccine books, Amazon is once again at the center of an edifying investigation. Indeed, our colleagues from the site The Markup just published a fascinating report on the advantages Amazon brands have over third-party competitors, especially in the order of appearance in the search results.
According to the article, it has been proven that the products of brands registered or owned by Amazon (more than 150 brands in total) are consistently higher in search results than competing products, yet better rated and holding more positive reviews. “The Markup found that Amazon placed these Happy Belly Cinnamon Crunch cereal with four stars and 1010 reviews in first place ahead of cereals with better and more reviews, including Cap’n Crunch (five stars, 14,069 reviews) ”, explains around the article.
The same goes for a vacuum cleaner from Amazon’s exclusive Noisz brand, placed in front of models from Bissel, Eureka and Hoover with higher ratings and more opinions. The survey also proves that Amazon brand products very quickly find their way into search results, while products from third-party sellers can take several weeks or months to get a good position.
Also read: Amazon sellers offer bribes to users to withdraw negative reviews
Amazon products much better represented in search results
This is the case of an Atlanta-based coffee grinder salesperson whose testimony was gathered by TheMarkup. He says he took 5 months to appear in the top three search results for the keyword “Coffee grinder”. But once Amazon launched its own coffee maker under the Amazon Basics brand, she ranked immediately and started to appear in the top three results for “coffee grinder” in no time.
The Markup explains that it analyzed search results on approximately 3,492 keywords related to popular products in January 2021, in order to see which products Amazon places first. For 60% of the cases, these are products sponsored by Amazon (a commercial agreement was signed between the reseller and Amazon to feature prominently in the results). In the remaining 40%, Amazon has made sure to give first place to both its products and competing products (20% and 20%).
Only the key thing to remember here is that Amazon brands and exclusives only accounted for 6% of all products and samples, and that competitors accounted for 77% ”. Conclusion, there are many more competing products, but much less well represented in search results than Amazon products. Not surprisingly, Amazon reacted to the publication of this survey: “We do not promote our store brand products through search. These placements are clearly labeled to distinguish them from search results ”, assures the e-commerce giant.